Are viruses living things?
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Are viruses living things?
Here's a lovely 3D rendering of a covid-19 virus injecting its genetic material into something, as many of us have no doubt done ourselves:
https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/coronav ... 13a43fa974
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Re: Are viruses living things?
What do you think, Steve?
I consider them to be alive because "infectious agent" is just a bespoke term to cover outliers like viruses and prions. There are many obligate parasites that require hosts to reproduce, so I don't begrudge them living status for that.
Viruses are different to other life in that they don't eat and are utterly unresponsive, until they land on a cell. Thus, some people describe them as "bad code". But does "bad code" evolve over billions of years, woven so closely into the fabric of life that they form critical parts of every eukaryote's microbiome and genetics? Seems like pretty good code to me.
Then again, I have long complained about the coupling of "biology" and "life". I see planets as being alive too - certainly the Earth is - and what we refer to as "life" is simply be the biological component of a living planet with active volcanism and water.
A side note, my favourite virus is the bacteriophage. How can you help but love a microorganism that lands on (often harmful) bacteria into which it injects the contents of its "head", which is (was) filled with DNA? https://imgur.com/gallery/m1veQla/comment/1347816287. Having little legs and a head shaped like an icosohedron are also endearing traits.
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Re: Are viruses living things?
I guess it depends how we're using the word "bad". Obviously it would be absurd to use it in the value judgement sense of the word.Greta wrote:I consider them to be alive because "infectious agent" is just a bespoke term to cover outliers like viruses and prions. There are many obligate parasites that require hosts to reproduce, so I don't begrudge them living status for that.
Viruses are different to other life in that they don't eat and are utterly unresponsive, until they land on a cell. Thus, some people describe them as "bad code". But does "bad code" evolve over billions of years, woven so closely into the fabric of life that they form critical parts of every eukaryote's microbiome and genetics? Seems like pretty good code to me.
We're all taught in high school Biology lessons that there are 7 (I think it's 7. These things usually seem to come in 7's) characteristics that define life, one of which is reproduction. So I suppose a thing which contains genetic material (DNA or RNA) and is capable of reproducing and thereby spreading it can be called life, even if it lacks some of the other 6.
The "bad code" thing is interesting, given that, while locked down in my house, I'm currently updating a set of C++ software coding standards for the company I work for (on and off). It's always interesting to see the striking parallels between genetic code and computer code.
One of the rules in the coding standards is "no commented-out code". i.e. don't do the thing which programmers very commonly do which is to render a section of code non-functional without having to delete it (by turning it into a section of comments), just in case it's needed later and needs to be re-instated. One reason why we create a rule against this, when trying to create robust, reliable, maintainable code, is that as soon as a section of code doesn't perform a function, because it's commented out, there is no way that it can cause errors when compiling (because the compiler ignores it). As soon as that happens, any errors in that code or sections that go out of date as the rest of the code develops, aren't flagged up. There's no selective mechanism to weed out errors.
This is strikingly similar to sections of our's and other creatures' DNA that are sometimes referred to as "bad code". If a section of DNA, for whatever reason, doesn't result in a physiological difference (if the link between genotype and phenotype is broken) then there is no selective pressure on that section. The difference, of course, is that nothing in the genetic code can be regarded as an "error" in the sense that it is in computer code, because, unlike with computer code, there isn't a programmer and a set of requirements to which the code is being developed to match.
There is a sense in which we think of living things that live in colonies (e.g. ants and termites) such that the colony itself is the living thing and the individual members are component parts, analogous to cells. I suppose we can think of a thing like the Earth in the same way.Then again, I have long complained about the coupling of "biology" and "life". I see planets as being alive too - certainly the Earth is - and what we refer to as "life" is simply be the biological component of a living planet with active volcanism and water.
Funnily enough, that's my standard mental image of what a virus looks like. It reminds me of a little lunar lander, landing on the surface of an alien planet. I think one reason is that when I was a kid I had a book called "The Book of Comparisons" (one of my favourite books) which was full of comparisons of various things with various other things in terms of size, area, volume, mass, duration, etc. On one page there was a picture of that very virus with a paragraph pointing out that the size of of the virus relative to a human is about the same as the size of a human relative to the Earth. They left it to the reader to draw any conclusions that they might want to draw from that.A side note, my favourite virus is the bacteriophage. How can you help but love a microorganism that lands on (often harmful) bacteria into which it injects the contents of its "head", which is (was) filled with DNA? https://imgur.com/gallery/m1veQla/comment/1347816287. Having little legs and a head shaped like an icosohedron are also endearing traits.
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Re: Are viruses living things?
What are the main similarities you see between genetic code and C++? (I was never a programmer but I worked closely enough with them to be in trouble under your "no comment" system. I used them so to easily backtrack if I bumbled, and to provide transparency (because I wasn't a programmer).
As you say, there's no programmer to grumble about "bad code" in biology, aside from the Grim Reaper.
I certainly do. Many astronauts living on the ISS do too, so it's not too crazy a notion.Steve3007 wrote: ↑April 3rd, 2020, 3:14 amThere is a sense in which we think of living things that live in colonies (e.g. ants and termites) such that the colony itself is the living thing and the individual members are component parts, analogous to cells. I suppose we can think of a thing like the Earth in the same way.
What is the difference between a colony and a thing? What levels of interconnection and interdependency is needed for "they" to become "it"?
For instance, why is a sea sponge considered to be an animal while an ant colony is said to be a super-organism? Each sponge cell or ant is genetically identical. Different cells and ants have different specialised roles, and none are independent. If you artificially break them apart, they will work to come together again.
At the margins our definitions are exposed to be, at best, clusters of tendencies and, at worst, conveniences. Ultimately, all life forms on Earth are both a component of the biosphere and separate entities in themselves. What has the biosphere done in the past few billion years? Basically it has turned the top of the Earth's crust into itself and become more complex and varied in the process. Or, perhaps a tidier perspective is that the upper part of the Earth's crust has become ever more complex and dynamic over deep time?
So, being more than a bit of a panvitalist and panpsychist, I'm naturally easygoing about including viruses in the domain of life. Still, if one doesn't want to call them "life", how about contingently dynamic organic crystals? (I wrote a story called Let There be Rock: A Mythology of Geobiology, about how the Earth's geology resented the intrusion of biology and sent rogue organic crystals, ie. viruses, to turn biology back into geology again, ie. kill it. In case you're wondering, since I doubt anyone will ever read such an uncommercial piece, geology eventually won the "war" by sending a genetic virus to instil in a certain great ape a greater love for geology than biology, setting off a chain of events that resulted in AI).
Due to the growing antibiotic resistance of superbugs, there have been successful examples of people being injected with lunar landers, er, bacteriophages to cure bacterial disease that doesn't respond to antibiotics. Apparently, any resistance that bacteria develop to bacteriophages comes at the expense of antibiotic resistance (it seems that bacteria cannot walk and chew gum at the same time).Steve3007 wrote: ↑April 3rd, 2020, 3:14 amFunnily enough, that's my standard mental image of what a virus looks like. It reminds me of a little lunar lander, landing on the surface of an alien planet. I think one reason is that when I was a kid I had a book called "The Book of Comparisons" (one of my favourite books) which was full of comparisons of various things with various other things in terms of size, area, volume, mass, duration, etc. On one page there was a picture of that very virus with a paragraph pointing out that the size of of the virus relative to a human is about the same as the size of a human relative to the Earth. They left it to the reader to draw any conclusions that they might want to draw from that.
After all that has happened, though, I can't help wondering if repeated use of such treatments might result in a mutation that allows bacteriophages to attach to humans cells. Given that "there are more than 1031 bacteriophages on the planet, more than every other organism on Earth, including bacteria, combined", such a mutation could make things a tad hairy. Perhaps extinction-level hairy?
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Re: Are viruses living things?
When I first took college undergrad upper division virology back in the day (1975), these questions of "what is life?" and of "is a virus alive?" were then as now also being asked. That was 45 years ago. Not much has changed, regarding this question, then as now.Steve3007 wrote: ↑April 2nd, 2020, 2:56 pm Perhaps the covid-19 outbreak is another opportunity to talk about whether there is an objectively existing dividing line between a piece of complex chemistry and a living thing. At what level of complexity do we declare "here is life"? If an allegedly living thing is so small that we can see the individual atoms of which it is composed and create computer models of the chemical reactions that constitute it going about its daily business, is it alive?
Here's a lovely 3D rendering of a covid-19 virus injecting its genetic material into something, as many of us have no doubt done ourselves:
https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/coronav ... 13a43fa974
Aristotle struggled with the notion of whether non-human animals had "breath" or "mind" or "soul."
From living with my cat over the past 6 years, I have concluded that cats certainly DO have breath/mind/soul.
As to whether a virion also has it, I cannot say.
You could just as well ask whether a beating heart removed from a human body and transplanted into another human has breath, mind, soul, or life? It beats on its own and continues to "live" even within another human's body.
A virion is like a beating heart in that it lives on even outside of its original "host" and goes on to replicate itself (its DNA or RNA) when it implants into another living host.
On the long list of things that humans simply don't know, the virion is on that list as well.
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Re: Are viruses living things?
My own favorite virus is rabies, since it is still the most virulent organism on this Earth, and the death rate from rabies is 100% if not treated.Greta wrote: ↑April 2nd, 2020, 8:04 pm Love the interactive #D model!
What do you think, Steve?
I consider them to be alive because "infectious agent" is just a bespoke term to cover outliers like viruses and prions. There are many obligate parasites that require hosts to reproduce, so I don't begrudge them living status for that.
Viruses are different to other life in that they don't eat and are utterly unresponsive, until they land on a cell. Thus, some people describe them as "bad code". But does "bad code" evolve over billions of years, woven so closely into the fabric of life that they form critical parts of every eukaryote's microbiome and genetics? Seems like pretty good code to me.
Then again, I have long complained about the coupling of "biology" and "life". I see planets as being alive too - certainly the Earth is - and what we refer to as "life" is simply be the biological component of a living planet with active volcanism and water.
A side note, my favourite virus is the bacteriophage. How can you help but love a microorganism that lands on (often harmful) bacteria into which it injects the contents of its "head", which is (was) filled with DNA? https://imgur.com/gallery/m1veQla/comment/1347816287. Having little legs and a head shaped like an icosohedron are also endearing traits.
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Re: Are viruses living things?
Typical criteria for life versus non-life include:
* Reproduction ability
* Metabolism and ability for growth/change
* Homeostasis
* Being made of cells
* Having a complex chemistry
* Containing DNA
Viruses do not meet some of these criteria--hence why they're often not considered to be living things. But of course we can simply modify the criteria, modify the concept, and they can count as life under a modified concept.
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Re: Are viruses living things?
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Re: Are viruses living things?
There are similar debates about the classification of brown dwarfs. They are said not to be true stars because they cannot fuse hydrogen (only its isotope, deuterium). Yet brown dwarfs are born in molecular clouds, not in protoplanetary discs like planets. As a result, they never orbit closely to (other?) stars in the system as planets. Why should it ability to fuse elements be seen as more important than its origin? Because that property is instinctively perceived as being lifelike, hence the constant use of metaphorical language used in science education everywhere, referring to the birth, life cycles and deaths of stars. But do stars die or simply change form into hyperdense objects that generate x-rays instead of visible light? Since x-rays are less useful to life that light, again, we place emphasis on that which we value.Terrapin Station wrote: ↑April 3rd, 2020, 9:48 am It's a demarcation criterion issue, or more generally, simply an issue of how individuals formulate their concepts. As such there's not a correct answer.
Typical criteria for life versus non-life include:
* Reproduction ability
* Metabolism and ability for growth/change
* Homeostasis
* Being made of cells
* Having a complex chemistry
* Containing DNA
Viruses do not meet some of these criteria--hence why they're often not considered to be living things. But of course we can simply modify the criteria, modify the concept, and they can count as life under a modified concept.
A similar situation exists when comparing viruses with other microbes. Reproduction and metabolism would seem to be the most key features of life, the other criteria being either natural corollaries of those features, eg. complexity and homeostasis or rather arbitrary, eg. composed of cells. Since the key feature of humans is complexity, we tend to use complexity and systematisation as demarcation criteria, but that is reflective of our biases. Viruses reproduce and they steal metabolisms of other organisms, which is one way of having a metabolism.
Ultimately, anything deemed to be binary will have an intermediate state that is glossed over, eg. brown dwarfs, viruses and sea sponges. Broadly, oceans operate as a binary of opposite of land. So, what is a beach - part of the ocean or part of the land? Both and neither, of course. It's assumed there are only two genders, yet there are millions of intersexed and gender variant people in the world. Are dawn and dusk part of the day or of the night? Again, the answer is more functional than ontic. When is noise music, music, and not just noise? Why is a colony of sea sponge considered to be an animal while a colony of ants as a super-organism when their levels of genetic similarity and interdependencies are similarly?
Perhaps, especially with our greater knowledge of the details of things and with the advent of quantum computing, it is time to think more in threes than twos?
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Re: Are viruses living things?
Rabies and the others are featured on this beautiful virus gallery: https://www.dotphoto.com/viewalbum.asp?AID=6781872&S=Y#h_k_s wrote: ↑April 3rd, 2020, 9:33 amMy own favorite virus is rabies, since it is still the most virulent organism on this Earth, and the death rate from rabies is 100% if not treated.Greta wrote: ↑April 2nd, 2020, 8:04 pmA side note, my favourite virus is the bacteriophage. How can you help but love a microorganism that lands on (often harmful) bacteria into which it injects the contents of its "head", which is (was) filled with DNA? https://imgur.com/gallery/m1veQla/comment/1347816287. Having little legs and a head shaped like an icosohedron are also endearing traits.
Viruses often seem to look like crystals. No offence, but your favourite virus is butt ugly :) It has a "superpower", though, in its super-rapid proliferation, to fast for the immune system to respond.
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Re: Are viruses living things?
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2 ... 131458.htm
https://www.livescience.com/largest-bac ... vered.html... scientists have found hundreds of huge phages that carry a slew of bacterial proteins that the phages evidently use to more efficiently manipulate their microbial hosts. These proteins include those involved with ribosomal production of proteins and the CRISPR bacterial immune system, as if the phages are a hybrid between living microbes and viral machines.
"Typically, what separates life from nonlife is to have ribosomes and the ability to do translation; that is one of the major defining features that separate viruses and bacteria, nonlife and life," co-lead author Rohan Sachdeva, a research associate at UC Berkeley, said in the statement. "Some large phages have a lot of this translational machinery, so they are blurring the line a bit."
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Re: Are viruses living things?
Yah the rabies virus does indeed look like a microscopic t u r d.Greta wrote: ↑April 3rd, 2020, 9:25 pmRabies and the others are featured on this beautiful virus gallery: https://www.dotphoto.com/viewalbum.asp?AID=6781872&S=Y#
Viruses often seem to look like crystals. No offence, but your favourite virus is butt ugly :) It has a "superpower", though, in its super-rapid proliferation, to fast for the immune system to respond.
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Re: Are viruses living things?
Yes, but you love it for what it can do, knowing that beauty is only protein coat deep.h_k_s wrote: ↑April 4th, 2020, 8:38 pmYah the rabies virus does indeed look like a microscopic t u r d.Greta wrote: ↑April 3rd, 2020, 9:25 pm
Rabies and the others are featured on this beautiful virus gallery: https://www.dotphoto.com/viewalbum.asp?AID=6781872&S=Y#
Viruses often seem to look like crystals. No offence, but your favourite virus is butt ugly :) It has a "superpower", though, in its super-rapid proliferation, to fast for the immune system to respond.
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Re: Are viruses living things?
As far as I know, it's an accepted notion that some colonies act as though the colony itself is a living thing. To the extent that many are happy to see those colonies as being alive in themselves. The biggest example is the Earth itself, which gives rise to the belief system I follow, in the form of Gaia. At a less abstract level, insect colonies are the most prevalent examples.Greta wrote: ↑April 3rd, 2020, 6:09 amI certainly do. Many astronauts living on the ISS do too, so it's not too crazy a notion.Steve3007 wrote: ↑April 3rd, 2020, 3:14 amThere is a sense in which we think of living things that live in colonies (e.g. ants and termites) such that the colony itself is the living thing and the individual members are component parts, analogous to cells. I suppose we can think of a thing like the Earth in the same way.
What is the difference between a colony and a thing? What levels of interconnection and interdependency is needed for "they" to become "it"?
As to your final questions, I think a colony might be judged alive if it acts alive. A colony is the same as any other creature in this: if it acts as though it lives, we assume it does. It seems reasonable to include colonies in this.
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